Homily for Alex Lassiter 3-16-13

A Homily for the Celebration of the Life of Alex “Al” Lassiter                                        Jeanette’s Pier, Nags Head, NC                                March 16, 2013                      

                                         Thomas E. Wilson, Chaplain

We come together to re-member Al Lassiter. To re-member does not just mean to go through a mental exercise, like remembering the capital of South Dakota, but to call to our present moment a loved and important member of our lives. To re-member is to have time and space collapse on each other and to connect the member again with us one more time.

There is a book of stories by Ray Bradbury called Dandelion Wine about events that occurred during the summer of 1928.  In one chapter the young boys in this small town go the home of an old man who is a human time machine, and he tells stories of his youth in the Civil War and the Old West, and as he tells the stories they hear the yelps of the coyotes, they smell the buffalo, they see the Indians, and they taste the dust from their ponies. When the old man dies, the buffalo start to disappear.  To remember means to place within the present stream of continuing memory those we love as they live within us.

Alex was not all that big at spending time trying to define God. When one of his nurses asked him about his Spiritual life, he said, “I guess I am probably an agnostic.”  The he paused and smiled and continued, “Maybe a dyslexic agnostic - I’m not sure I fully believe in dogs.” The 12^th century theologian Anselm would say that God is that which is greater than could ever be imagined. If you could imagine it, whatever it is you imagined was not God. In fact, whatever you said after “God is” was probably too limited.  As Al’s mother said, “Al never wasted a minute of his life.” 

For Al there was something much greater than himself, and this which was greater than himself was what caused him to have an awe about life and gave him an excuse to love and accept love. You can see this awe in his art - there are colors and images so bright and vibrant that they had to come not from nature but from the connection to that which was the ground of being under nature, that spiritual reality which he had, the spiritual gift to see and reflect in his art and life. You can see this awe in the hours he spent surfing, connecting with the waves - not to show off, not to be noticed, not to be “better” than someone else in competition. His mother called him a “sole”,  S O L E surfer, but I would call him a “soul” “SOUL” surfer, in that his deeper self - we do not have souls, we are souls - his deeper self connected to the deeper meaning of life. 

Al surfing

You can see this awe when he came across people, people made in the image of God, who needed help. How many surfing trips changed focus when he gave away his possessions to the people he met who were living in poverty? How many kids without a place to stay in the community were brought home to find a place of refuge?  His mother said, “Al never brought home stray animals, but he did bring home stray children.” One of our tasks may be to forgive Al for when he would shut us out. When he was in the hospital, he always wanted the door closed because he did not want to be a burden, and he limited the number of people who he allowed to minister to him. He was so used to giving he found it hard to receive.

Al lived all of the 23 years of his life around the water of the Outer Banks. My own metaphor for life and death has been influenced by my living close to water. For me it was rivers and canoeing and rafting which meant having to read the river, to understand it, to be at one with the water. I see life and death as part of a continuous stream of energy, the water of life that begins in the heart of God. My experience resonates with the visions of the Prophet Ezekiel and the writer of the New Testament Book of Revelation of the River of the Waters of Life flowing from the Throne of God. 

We begin in the overflowing heart of God which allows our ancestors to be carried by love, and from their love we flow into the waters of the womb of a fellow swimmer in the waters of life. When the time comes for waters of the swimmer’s womb to break, we flow with all others and, as the old Gospel song states, “gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river”. This River of Love flows to the sea and returns to the heart of God. We are moistened by the one current in different streams of experience. On our journey, we are helped by other swimmers as they teach us to love and to read and have awe for the River. Others may hinder us. One of the things we do today is to remember Al who infected fellow swimmers with love. I listened to Brandon who tells us he was his friend for life, and to Julia and Joanna and Sara, who all returned that love faithfully. Part of our task is to spend time together and tell stories about our friend, because true friends remain so long after death. We mourn because we think we have lost him. Relationships are formed but the river continues to flow, and as the ancient Greek Philosopher, Heraclites, reminds, we “cannot step in the same river twice.” The River changes and we change; we do not have the power to remain static in one place as everything changes. If we are lucky, we will thankfully hold on to memories of our time together. If we are lucky, we will allow the river’s forgiving cleansing to wash away all the debris from our memories that gets in the way of thankfulness. For the River changes and we change. Others will reach the great sea before we do, and we may want to hold on to them, but the river moves us and them, and we all empty into the sea where we flow back to the heart of that which is greater than ourselves.

Today at the Intersection of the waters, as we hear the water beat up against the beach, who are the people who we still carry in our souls? I remember and treasure friends. I carry and continue to work on forgiving those I need to set free and turn them over to the power greater than myself, to give myself the strength to treasure and forgive so I may swim graciously uninhibited. Al was able to sing, surf, create, and love uninhibited. He did not sell his soul out for the approval of others, he went his own way and that way was love.

There are ways you can remember Al. One way is to contribute to the foundation set up in his name. However, if you really want to fully re-member Al, then ride the waves as if you were connected to the deeper reality. If you want to re-member Al, then create by seeing with the deeper eye of the spirit, be generous and considerate to others. If you want to re-member Al, then be gracious in accepting love as a gift rather than your due. If you want to re-member Al, then love, for Al’s sake, love the way Al taught us how to love.